Howard by benjamin nielsen

Centuries of human carelessness has rendered most of the planet’s landmasses completely uninhabitable. The few habitable islands left remaining are defenseless against the onslaught of tides and volcanic eruptions that viciously shake them and toss the inhabitants like dirty laundry into the sea. In order to prevent hundreds of people from meeting a watery grave, the planet has begun hiring Giants to balance the landmasses holding what’s left of humanity.
You are a Giant named Howard. You’ve fallen on hard times due to the turbulent Giant economy, but luckily, you have just learnt of this lucrative job prospect. While your hiring manager has told you that your explicit task is to keep islanders from being swallowed by the ocean, insufficient man-power leaves you largely unaccountable, and thus, your only performance review is your own conscience. Will you do your best to keep Islanders from drowning, or will you expedite the tragic, painful deaths of the happy island nation?
Controls:
Use WASD to move, space to jump, mouse movement to look around. you can also swim :)
Credits:
Ben - Coding and materials
Bimgus - 3d modelling and animations
Shrub - Music and sounds (and, like, one island)
| Link | https://github.com/ben-baqa/Howard |
| Link | https://bobo-baqa.itch.io/howard |
| Link | https://bobo-baqa.itch.io/howard |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/howard |
Ratings
| Overall | 1226th | 3.125⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1063th | 3.125⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 747th | 3.3⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 449th | 3.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1034th | 3.275⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 377th | 3.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 97th | 4.075⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 833th | 3.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
EDIT: I can play the game now. Quite a silly game, I love it! Audio and visuals together create a very cute atmosphere. The lack of any external performance review is a bit sad, I don't know why he doesn't make himself independent as a freelance island balancer giant. But at least I can catapult houses into the water as a form of protest!
Yeah, we're not very good at making passwords...
Regarding the gameplay, I think a display of villagers (alive/drowned) would have helped to get an overall grasp of the situation. Also it felt a bit random at times because it was not always clear for me if and how I could still "rescue" a drowned villager. But I suppose that's also kind of the premise of the game so that's fine!
Overall I really liked it, good job!
Howard moves very fiddly and the island gets stuck in weird positions more often than not.
I liked the music track and the sound effects.
With a little bin more polishing, like streamlining the controls and having an actual objective, the game would be even better.